We want to make sure the increasing use of digital payments occurs in a way that helps promote greater competition, innovation and productivity across our entire economy.
If we are to take this stated goal at face value it would seem to be a good thing. Getting ahead of the curve before the tech giants find a way to turn these products against us.
The problem is a lot of Australian’s will not take this at face value especially in the current climate of the movement away from physical cash. It’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are doing this to protect the Australian people with the lack of any sort of harm or complaint. Feel free to point out if there’s something I’m not thinking about regarding this point.
Personally, this smells extremely fishy to me and the most likely explanation in my mind is that they want to kneecap the tech giants and allow our financial sector to push in this space. I can’t imagine CBA, ANZ, etc particularly enjoying their control over this space being eroded. They have every opportunity to innovate in the space but they’re clearly lacking the drive to do so. Instead of improving competition by forcing the big banks to step up, they’re knee capping actual innovation.